Blogging Back to Basics with Feathers

For the past few years, blogging has taken over the internet and it’s no surprise that blogging software and platforms have been increasingly easier to quickly access and use. However, if you just want to write the occasional post and aren’t too bothered about maintaining a full blog, these tools can seem incredibly bloated. Themes, categories, tags — these can quickly become a major pain to maintain. That’s where Feathers comes in.

Feathers gets you focused on the writing again and you can be up and blogging in seconds — relieving the need to configure a full blog. Read on to find out more!

What is Feathers?

Think of it like a blog without a blog. You use Feathers to create individual posts that you can then share with the world. No themes or templates to set up, no worrying about ensuring that your posts are categorised and tagged, and (most of all) you don’t need to spend an hour or so coming up with a creative or witty name for your blog. Feathers takes blogging back to its basics and makes what you write more important than the unnecessary baggage brought by many blogging platforms. There is also no obligation to post regularly as visitors aren’t shown when the last post was added — ensuring that should you be an occasional blogger, you can be just that without potential readers being put off by inactivity.

Feathers Homepage

Getting Writing

For now, Feathers is invite-only and you can obtain an invite through the website. Registration is quick and simple and within seconds, you can be ready to begin using the app. After logging in, you’ll be presented with an example ‘feather’ written in Feathers that, when clicked through to the editor, explains in a nutshell how Feathers works and the shortcuts that are included to make writing that extra bit smoother and quicker.

The Tutorial Post

When writing in Feathers for the first time, you’ll notice how incredibly easy it is to get a post up and running. The interface of Feathers is very much what-you-see-is-what-you-get and as such, everything can be edited just by clicking on that particular segment. One of the first things that will need to be added is a title. Though the URL of each post is not based on this and is more a random string of numbers, it will obviously need to be relevant to the post if you want people to know what you’re writing about as categories aren’t there to help.

The Post Editor

After this, you can begin adding actual content to the post simply by clicking the first paragraph (which defaults to a nice motivational quote until edited for the first time) and then typing. It’s important to note that Feathers doesn’t go all out like some other blog platforms and allow you to add images and other content. It focuses solely on text and these are separated into paragraphs which can be navigated-to and added simply by pressing the tab key. Once the feather’s finished, it’s ready to be shared with the world.

Sharing Feathers

Feathers allows writers to easily save drafts of their posts until they’re complete and when these are ready, the feather can be published in a single click. Feathers doesn’t over-complicate any part of the publishing process and provides two simple buttons for authors to share their posts either through Facebook or Twitter. It’s really that simple; you can begin distributing the link to your article straight away.

Sharing Feathers

Thanks to the fact that Feathers’ editor is essentially WYSIWYG, the published post page doesn’t look that much different to how it looked when it was edited. However, it’s worth noting that from the approach Feathers takes, a commenting system isn’t included so the app is definitely more suited to those that want a means of just discussing whatever they feel like and aren’t so bothered about provoking discussion in the form of comments. Though this is a feature that may benefit the app, if it should ever be added, it should be provided as an opt-in thing as including it by default could remove the simple nature of the app. But I digress, the overall publishing process on Feathers is incredibly simple — making the app very much suitable for those who don’t really have a strong technological knowledge.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I found Feathers to be a really interesting little app that left me, once again, thinking ‘why has nobody done this before?’ It seems like such a logical concept that seems to have been overlooked before and the result is an app that brings blogging back to its basics again, no need to worry about the additional baggage that is often so notorious for distracting bloggers away from their writing, and it brings a fresh take on a medium we’re all so used to.

Though I’m not entirely without bad feedback (commenting could definitely work), it seems almost perfect and one of the intriguing realisations when I was playing with this is just how easy it will make blogging for older generations and perhaps those who aren’t as tech-savvy to share their thoughts and opinions with the world. Kudos to the Feathers team!

Summary

Feathers brings blogging back to its basics. It allows its users to create and share their own blog posts without requiring the creation of a 'blog' in itself - ensuring that writing is the main focus.

Feathers
Reviewed by Ryan Stubbs on
Dec 19.
Feathers brings blogging back to its basics. It allows its users to create and share their own blog posts without requiring the creation of a 'blog' in itself - ensuring that writing is the main focus.
Rating:
9 out of
10